Round the Herne

 All five parts of my reading of Forrest Reid's supernatural teen romance "The Garden God" (1905). This is a somewhat controversial work, when it was published same-sex romances were illegal and, whilst there is no sex and it is all sighing and gazing rather than anything else, it was still incendiary ground for any author to tread upon. Even today the work is challenging, given that the main characters in the flashback sequences are about 16-years old. Teen romance novels have become very popular of late, but some of us are sufficiently old and crusty that we would sooner ignore adolescent crushes! However, this work follows the same intensely lyrical style that Oscar Wilde adopted, including the same great love of Greek mythology that weaves throughout this short story, and the vivid embrace of nature imagery. Reid, like his fellow Irishman Wilde, was clearly deeply wedded to the countryside. The supernatural elements are low-key, mostly centred around the possibility t...

 My reading of the first chapter of M R James' (1922) children's book "The Five Jars", in which the unnamed narrator encounters a magical stream and a mysterious plant. Trying a variant format for the recording using the Loom platform, to see which people prefer most.

 This short ramble is just a few ideas around the topic of the genius loci - the spirit of place, as understood by the Ancient Romans. I had a guest spot last night on an American online radio talking about my books, including the murder mystery anthology (A Dangerous Place) one of whose themes is the power of the genius loci to shape and influence the people who live within its sphere. This recording picks up on some of those ideas and reflects further on the idea of how we interact with the entities that take up residence in a location where we also spend a great deal of time. If I can marshal my thoughts in a more coherent fashion in the near future, I shall do so - having been laid low with an infection, today is the first time I have felt able to say something even as meandering as this.

  Six poems by different poets (Henry Newbolt, Richard Murphy, Sir John Betjeman, Hilary Llewellyn-Williams, Aonghus MacNeacail, and myself) just for the love of sharing poetry. Please let me know about poets/poems which you really like. I think it would be good to share the works we like to introduce them to a wider audience. The poems (in order) are: Henry Newbolt - "The Final Mystery" Richard Murphy - "Casement's Funeral" Sir John Betjeman - "Diary of a Church Mouse" Hilary Llewellyn-Williams - "The Bee-flight" Aonghus MacNeacail - "You Gave Me Summer" Robin Herne - "The Threefold Father"

  My reading of the seventh chapter of Edith Nesbitt's (1904) children's book "The Phoenix and the Carpet". Here the children discover the limits of animism - carpets simply do not think like humans and interpret instructions their own way. Hence the tidal wave of moggies. As an aside, having an animist view of the universe does highlight the issue of language. We do not have to go as far as to embrace the Sapir-Wharf Hypothesis to see that different human languages produce very different understandings of the world... and that if we extend the capacity for language to a vast number of other beings (both organic life forms and creatures which current scientific thinking would not consider to be alive in the first place) then the problems of communicating between different forms of consciousness increase exponentially. I might write a book about this issue one day.

 A few random thoughts about Carl Jung's notion of participation mystique and how it can link into animism, paganism, and the creative arts. It would be interesting to hear other views and experiences around this topic (especially what might pretentiously be called the "death of art", touched on towards the end of the video).

 As previously mentioned, I gave the Annual Faith Lecture at the university campus in Ipswich, talking about animism and paganism and their involvement with environmentalism. The talk lasted an hour and the questions after were about half as much again. I made a recording of the talk, as near as I could remember it. Hopefully it might prove of interest to at least some subscribers to this blog.

  Lecture - Tuesday 17th May, 6pm in Lecture Theatre #1 at the Waterfront Building, Ipswich Modern forms of Paganism have undergone a revival in the last century, drawing on the polytheist and animist religions of the ancient world for their inspiration and world view (though often blended with ideas from a variety of other sources). Many, perhaps the majority, of modern pagans feel a reverence for the natural world and a wish to restore the damage done by increasing industrialisation and population growth. This talk examines some of the major influences on the development of Paganism, the relationship with the environmental movements, and how an animist worldview shapes an understanding of the Land, the living beings we share it with, the realm of spirits, and our respective duties towards them. Biography Robin Herne is the Route Leader for Sociology and Criminology at West Suffolk College, having previously been the Lead for Religious Studies and Ethics there. He regularly contri...

 This was a seminar given on the afternoon of 16th January 2021 via Facebook Live as an activity for the Ipswich Pagan Council, looking at ways in which Jungian theory can be applied to the understanding and practice of modern paganism. I asked the people tuning in to the live broadcast to donate £5 to The Dogs Trust. If you find this recording useful or interesting, perhaps you would also like to donate? If you are unfamiliar with Facebook Live, it allows viewers to type questions, comments etc. None of the comments can be seen in this recording, but knowing that I could see the messages at the time may help to contextualise who it is that I am responding to. For once it is not the voices in my head. Should you have any questions or feedback, please post your comments here on the blog.  

 The second instalment (a few days late going up due to the mayhem of life) looks at different understandings of deity in various forms of paganism and touches briefly on other orders of spiritual beings. If you have any questions for the third and final part, please add them to the comment section below. As previously, if you find this useful please make a donation to a food-bank or similar kind of charity in a place near you.

Finally a visit to the barber today, so I look less like someone who sleeps in a ditch and shouts at pigeons. To mark the day, here is a meander through some philosophical concepts around epistemology from a polytheist stance - how do polytheists know what they claim to know? How can the truthfulness of claims be assessed (and what do we even mean by truth anyway)? There will be a follow-up to this at some stage, as there are other ides that I want to explore - and if anyone has any questions or reflections of their own, it will help to shape where the next video ramble goes.

Here are the links to the Virtual version of the Leaping Hare pagan convention, featuring the talents of Nick Ford, Carys, Jonathan Boddam-Whethers and myself. In theory one should play on automatically from the previous, but in case there are problems with list I have pasted each link individually below. INTRODUCTION SHEEP POEM (NICK FORD) UNDERWORLD INITIATION (DR J. B. WETHAM) CALL MY BLUFF MINI-QUIZ CARYS'S SONG (GAIA) BEAR TRIBE POEM (NICK FORD) BROTHERHOOD OF THE SHADOWS STORY EPOMEDUOS AND THE MARE ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD TALK

I was asked to contribute an interfaith voice to a week's worth of what might be termed short sermons at the Cathedral, inspired by concerns over environmental threats and how Christians (or anyone else listening) might react. This is the first time I've spoken at the cathedral and the first time I've ever given a Bible reading anywhere, so it made for an interesting Friday 13th - for me, if not necessarily for everyone in the congregation. Though they were very polite and said they found it interesting. The text is below. It could have been more polished, but as this was a novel experience for me I really wasn't sure quite what to say and what to avoid. The Land, the Soul, and the Storyteller The Ancient Romans believed that the landscape was garlanded with places of spiritual awe and mysterious presences which they referred to as the numina. For the people of the ancient world what made a place sacred was its innate spirit, its ineffable presence or numen....

Had a lovely trip to the Vajrasana Buddhist Retreat in Suffolk with the students today - stunning statues and a wonderfully tranquil courtyard garden. Wish we'd had time to stay longer. Helped to stop me stressing about a very elderly dog who was under anaesthetic for extensive dental work (he survived and is sleeping soundly as I type). Anyway, here's an end-of-term semi-conscious meander through ideas building around Nietzsche's concepts of the Master-Slave dialectic and developing beyond it to what I consider a more balanced polytheist/animist approach (with some inspirational help from economic theorist Jane Jacobs and American philosopher Lester Hunt). Oh, and for those of you missed the kitchen videos, we're back to baking!